Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	church_n	government_n	reform_a	2,718	5	10.4681	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26832	Vulgar errors in divinity removed	Battell, Ralph, 1649-1713.	1683 (1683)	Wing B1150; ESTC R10796	49,392	154

they were angry at this and would have a King to be like the Heathen they angred God not but that they chose the best kind of Government but they rejected God the best Governour 1 Sam. 8.7 God says thus to Samuel They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them They preferred an earthly King to reign over them before an heavenly and Laws of his making before Laws of Gods making Samuel told them what Laws he would make He will take said he the best of your Fields and Vineyards the tenth of your Seed and of your Cattel and give to his Officers c. Nevertherless they would have it so rather than God should reign over them any longer and hence it was that he gave them a King in his anger How ungrateful either Democracy or Aristocracy hath been to their greatest Patriots and the defenders of their Country the Histories of Miltiades and Aristides among the Greeks and of Scipio Africanus among the Latines do abundantly testifie Indeed eminency of virtue in their Governours must needs create jealousies of introducing Monarchy which they to prevent did often unjustly imprison or banish their best Commanders It is likewise a Vulgar Error that from the beginning of the world there was a propriety of Law to make a Monarch whereas to matter of fact to any that will not shut their eyes it must needs appear a vain Hypothesis For I would fain know whether Adam held his Title over his Children so or any other Hereditary Prince at first or whether rather the right to Government was not inherent in his very Bloud Person and the next of the Family If it be said but few Nations have been so happy as to have the Succession derived to the eldest of the Family long together but one of these two things often hapned either some Usurper obtained the Government by the commotion of a People or some other Nation got the Crown by Conquest We demand in such cases is not that Government from God I answer God suffers the Devil to have a great power but is it therefore a lawful one And will you from thence argue that all men therefore ought as well as most most men do obey him A Permissive power is one thing and a just power that comes with Gods Commission is another Where the People rebel against their lawful Prince and set up an Usurper here is Gods Permission But as for Gods Commission to such a Power I am to seek and so I believe is every Usurper as well as was Henry the Fourth of England on his death-bed who looking on his Crown which stood on his Bolster sighing said to his Son What right I had to this Crown God only knows Or as was Richard the Third the night before Bosworth Field was fought as Polydor Virgil relates I will give it you in his own words speaking how he was scared in the Night he says Id puto non fuisse somnium sed Erinnem Conscientiae I do not think it a dream affrighted him so but his guilty Conscience Secondly where some other Nation by Conquest obtained the Crown if it were unjustly gotten as it was where the Conquerour was the Aggressor it is no lawful Power For if Robbers of whole Countries be Gods Vicegerents surely Thieves and Bandittoes are his under Officers As a Bastard till the tenth Generation might not enter into the Congregation of the Lord Deut. 23.2 So such a bastard Government must have length of time to make it legitimate but if it was a lawful Conquest as it might be where the Conquered gave just occasion of a War or else began the War first Yet the Title is weak to the conquered Crown till by length of time and death of all just Pretenders it becomes the true Title beeause it becomes the only one It is likewise said by some of late times that Kings have nothing to do to meddle in Ecclesiastical matters but only to govern in Civil Affairs but it is apparent that as the Fathers of the Families in the beginning of the world were vested with a Kingly power over their own Posterity so likewise they were Priests to their own Housholds and Esau is called a prophane person because he sold his birthright Heb. 12 16. to which the Priesthood was annex'd He is not called a Fool or an Ideot but a profane person one that did unhallow himself So that from the beginning it was not so as they would have it neither is it so yet for whatever things or persons were not exempted from the power of the chief Magistrate before Christs time are not by him exempted Now if we shall enquire what was the manner of the Nations of the World or of Gods People in this point it will appear that the Magistrate ever regulated Religion and religious persons Witness the Decree of Cyrus to build Gods Temple of the King of Ninevey to proclaim a Fast for all and of Nebuchadnezzar first for Idolatry and afterwards for to worship the true God all which are at large recorded in Scripture And although in the Jewish Commonwealth God separated the Prince from the Priest yet still the Priest remained subject to the Prince as by the Stories of David and Solomon sufficiently appear The Kings were blamed if things of Religion were amiss which certainly they had never been had not the affairs of Religion appertained to their inspection But it is objected that in the Primitive time of Christianity the power to govern the Church was only in the Apostles and their Successors and not in heathen Princes To that I answer Those heathen Princes had a right to Christianity and also to the Government of Christian Churches in their Dominions but they scorned to own their right to either or to subject their Scepters to a Crucified Saviour But when in Constantine's time the Government became Christian Socrates tells us all the Affairs of the Church returned to the Royal Authority and Constantine repress'd the Arian Doctrine and Justinian the Emperour establish'd the Code of the Universal Church consisting of the four first general Councils and some ancient Provincial ones and made them Laws of old reforming Kings were commended now God never commends busie-bodies in other mens matters every one ought to glorifie God with that Talent which he hath received Now the Sword is the Magistrates Talent and with that he is to be an avenger of those that do evil But evil in the Church is evil as well as in the State and tends to overthrow the State and therefore it belongs to him to avenge it He goes against the Laws of our Land and may make him too weak for Government who will not allow the King Supremacy in the Church as well as in the State not as supreme Ordinary unless he please to go into Sacred Orders which he may at any time but he always is Supreme Governour in his Territories as well Ecclesiastical

could have walked to Christ on his own feet what could he have more desired than to be healed So if we come with our own invention or expression in Prayer we can expect nothing more than to be heard which God the searcher of the heart will as soon do when we draw nigh to him with words of the Churches composing as if they were of our own framing if the Heart be not wanting Yea but methinks I hear some say the Heart must needs be wanting for praying is one thing and reading is another I grant they are two several things but yet they are compatible and may well stand together When we read the Lords Prayer in the sixth Chapter of St. Matthew and our intention is only to inform our selves of the Will of God set down in his Word we acknowledge we do not pray but when we read the Lords Prayer in the Liturgy and we lift up our hearts to God in every of the Petitions then we affirm that we do pray So then when we read and our intention is only to receive knowledge into the soul we do not pray in reading but when in reading we also pour out the requests of our hearts then such reading may truly be called praying Secondly it is objected reading set Prayers out of a Book is a stinting of the Spirit but we ought not to stint or quench the Spirit therefore we ought not to read Prayers out of a Book I answer 1. If he that prays a set Form stints the Spirit then he that prays an extempore Prayer out of the Pulpit stints the spirits of all those that joyn with him for they that hear him and joyn with him are limited by his words and his sense and so it is as bad as a set Form to them for if their minds go along with him they pray the same Prayer that he doth and neither more nor less Now why should the People be tied to the Prayers of the Minister and not the Minister to the Prayers of the Church If it be sinful in one to stint the Spirit it is sinful also in the other and so no publick Prayer where many joyn together could be offered up to God without sin in this respect because the Spirit must be bound up and stinted in all but in him that speaks it But if the meaning of the Objection be that extempore Prayers stint not the Spirit because then a man speaks as the Spirit gives utterance which cannot be in set Forms then this absurdity would follow If to those men which pray extempore the Spirit of God doth dictate those words unto them then those Prayers would be as good Canonical Scripture if written by the Pen of a ready Writer as any of the Psalms of David or Asaph or any of the holy men of old recorded in Scripture which because it would be blasphemy to affirm it roundly follows such Prayers are not spoken as the Spirit gives utterance but are the effects of their own Art and Industry and therefore the turning of that practice into a set Form doth not stint nor quench the Spirit of God in Prayer That those sudden Conceptions are not dictated by the Spirit of God appears plainly by this men of divers opinions pray quite contrary things as for instance a Presbyterian Minister takes a Text sounding as he thinks towards the establishing of Presbytery such as that in 1 Pet. 5.1 The Elders that are among you I exhort who also am an Elder From whence he delivers the Presbyterian Government is the Government Christ establish'd in the Church After his Sermon he prays over again the chief Heads of what he delivered and says Good Lord settle those truths which to day thou hast shewn us concerning Church Government upon our hearts An Independent he comes and he takes a Text which he wrests likewise but it is to Independency and he bids them stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage from which words he delivers for Doctrine that Independency is the only way that Christ hath left for his Church And after Sermon he prays likewise that the People may not receive his Doctrine as the word of a man but as the Will and Word of God Call ye this praying by the Spirit To say so is in deed and truth a blaspheming of the Spirit for the Spirit of God cannot speak contradictions as these men do in their Pulpit Conceptions And yet they would father all upon the incomes of the Spirit which assisted them in carrying on the work of the day Their Sermons being contradictory one to the other and their Prayers sutable to their Sermons their Prayers must needs include contradictions also One prays God to establish Presbytery the other Independency in the Church now how can both these be dictated by one and the same Spirit To pray with the Spirit signifies in Scripture three things 1. To pray by immediate inspiration so as to make no use of our own judgment or reason either in devising the matter or chusing the words but to speak only what the Spirit doth suggest Thus those that penned the Scriptures were inspired and spake not their own private mind or meaning but as they were carried forth out of themselves and moved by the Holy Ghost And so St. Paul is to be understood when he saith I will pray with the Spirit and with the understanding also that is I will use any language which the Spirit shall dictate unto me but I will interpret it that the People may understand it and say Amen unto it for while the Apostles lived there was in the Church an extraordinary gift of Prayer which supplied the place of set Forms but it was as miraculous as the gift of Tongues When this gift and the gift of Miracles ceased they used stated Forms in Publick and the Council of Carthage ordered that no other Prayers should be put up in their Assemblies but what were approved of by wise and prudent men in the Synod lest something through ignorance or inadvertency might be uttered contrary to the Faith and Doctrine of Christ Secondly By praying with the Spirit is meant to pray by the direction of Gods holy Spirit Jude 20. But ye beloved building up your selves in your most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost The Spirit helps in directing us what is fit for us to ask of God and what God sees fit to bestow upon man And this direction is given us in his holy Word where we are taught what to pray for so as not to ask amiss else we should not know what to pray for as we ought Rom. 8.26 He that prescribes the model of an house and provides materirials and sets men on work may be truly said to build that house although it be builded by other mens hands So the Holy Ghost prescribing us Forms in the Word and inciting us to pray by promise of